5.2.1 RC?

[Nikolas Britton]

A -RELEASE is little more then a snapshot of X day of Y year of ether 
FreeBSDs -STABLE or -CURRENT.

In FreeBSD you have two main lines of development, one is -STABLE The 
other is -CURRENT. Think of a Tree, FreeBSD -STABLE are the Branches, 
FreeBSD -CURRENT is the main trunk.

The -STABLE Branches as of right now are FreeBSD 1, 2, 3, and 4, The 
-CURRENT Branch is the always the main CVS Head.

Both FreeBSD -STABLE and -CURRENT are under active development. -STABLE, 
as a rule, gets bug and security fixes, but only gets new features and 
such that are well tested. -CURRENT gets new features, big architectural 
changes, and all those sorts of new development stuff.

FreeBSD 5.0, 5.1, and 5.2.x are from -CURRENT, FreeBSD 5.3 will be cut 
from -CURRENT and will be declared -STABLE and -CURRENT will become 
FreeBSD 6 from then onword.

As a general rule you never want to track -CURRENT unless you know what 
your doing, FreeBSD 5.x is the exception to this rule.

This is largely oversimplified and I did not go into detail here, for 
that your going to have to do your own research, again here's some 
targeted links to help:

http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/rants/bsd4linux/bsd4linux5.php
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/releng/index.html
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/5-roadmap/index.html
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.2R/early-adopter.html
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cutting-edge.html
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvs-tags.html
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvsup.html
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/index.html
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html

DerAlSem wrote:

>Hello Nikolas,
>
>Monday, February 16, 2004, 9:57:56 PM, you wrote:
>
>NB> DerAlSem wrote:
>
>  
>
>>>Hello Nikolas,
>>>
>>>Monday, February 16, 2004, 8:55:55 AM, you wrote:
>>>
>>>NB> DerAlSem wrote:
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>>Hello freebsd-newbies,
>>>>>
>>>>>I want latest release of FreeBSD.
>>>>> 5.2.1-RC2-i386-disc1.iso - RC2 stands for Release Candidate 2? Does
>>>>> anyone knows, when it'll become Master?
>>>>>
>>>>>     
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>NB> FreeBSD 5.2.1 will be release in a week or two. 5.2.1 is being released
>>>NB> because of some bugs in 5.2 that went unnoticed. Because it's based on
>>>NB> 5.2 code and not the the current cvs head you should be able to safely
>>>NB> use the RC now and just CVSup to 5.2.1 when released.
>>>
>>>Hm, i'n using 5.1 now... Just few net-servers (ftp,www,irc, and home
>>>NAT). And as a newbie, a don't know about CVS... man cvs, am i right?
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>NB> not the man pages, read the following from the FreeBSD Handbook, after
>NB> read you should be able to use CVSup, upgrade the whole system (tracking
>NB> current or stable), install/upgrade ports, and install/update Kernels
>NB> and no you don't have to know everything by heart, skim through all if
>NB> it then bookmark/print/makenotes of the key info. Start with the ports
>NB> system, then the kernel, and then building world.
>
>NB> Appendix A.5 Using CVSup:
>NB> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvsup.html
>NB> Chapter 21 The Cutting Edge:
>NB> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cutting-edge.html
>NB> Chapter 9 Configuring the FreeBSD Kernels:
>NB> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/kernelconfig.html
>NB> Chapter 4 Installing Applications: Packages and Ports:
>NB> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports.html
>
>  
>
>>>NB> BTW: FreeBSD 4.9 is the lastest "Production" Release. The 5.0, 5.1, and
>>>NB> 5.2.x releases are still considered beta.
>>>
>>>But 5.0 and 5.1 and 5.2 as far as i know is in "RELEASE" status. I
>>>thought, it's mean, that i can use them, and they are free of bugs and
>>>security holes.
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>NB> Yes you can use it and it should work perfect for you, but the code is
>NB> untested. So 4.9 is still recommended for mission critical deployments.
>
>So, if i do not need "mission critical deployments" and want to be
>most up to date, i can use latest "release" without any problems?
>
>And i still do not understand. How can it be - "release" status, but
>code untested?
>
>NB> Read this, It explains a lot of thing about the *BSDs:
>NB> http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/rants/bsd4linux/bsd4linux1.php
>
>And again - thanks for info.
>
>  
>